The French Armed Forces encompass the French Army, the French Navy, the French Air Force and the National Gendarmerie. The President of the Republic heads the armed forces, with the title "chef des armées" ("chief of the military forces"). The President is the supreme authority for military matters and is the sole official who can order a nuclear strike. The French military has, as some of its primary objectives, the defence of national territory, the protection of French interests abroad, and the maintenance of global stability.

The military history of France encompasses an immense panorama of conflicts and struggles extending for more than 2,000 years across areas including modern France, greater Europe, and European territorial possessions overseas. According to BBC History: "There have been 53 major wars in Europe, France had been a belligerent in 49 of them; UK 43. In 185 battles that France had fought over the past 800 years, their armies had won 132 times, lost 43 times and drawn only 10, giving the French military the best record of any country in Europe".

The Free French Forces were individuals or military units who joined "Free France", the resistance organization founded by Charles de Gaulle in 1940 in London in order to continue the struggle against the Axis powers.

De Gaulle, a French government minister who rejected the armistice concluded by Maréchal Philippe Pétain and who had escaped to Britain, exhorted the French to resist in his BBC broadcast "Appeal of 18 June" (Appel du 18 juin), which had a stirring effect on morale throughout France and its colonies.

The Free French fought Axis and Vichy troops, and served on battlefronts everywhere from the Middle East to Indochina and North Africa. The Free French Navy operated as an auxiliary force to the Royal Navy, and there were Free French units in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, and British SAS.

In November 1942, the Allies invaded Vichy-controlled French North Africa, and many Vichy troops joined the Free French, with General Henri Giraud at their head. This caused the Germans to occupy Vichy France, and in retaliation a Vichy force of 60,000 in North Africa joined the Allies.